


Burning

by Elphen



Series: Nesting [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Can't think of more tags, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Crowley's Bentley (Good Omens), During Canon, Emotional pain, Fear, Fire, M/M, Nesting, Panicking Crowley (Good Omens), Scared Crowley (Good Omens), Scene: The Bookshop Fire (Good Omens), Worried Crowley (Good Omens), anguish, burning nest, collapse of building, destroyed nest, feathers - Freeform, flames, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 11:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30004125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elphen/pseuds/Elphen
Summary: Crowley goes to the bookshop after he's had his run-in with Hastur and Ligur, scared of what he'll find - if Hell has found out he screwed up, they might have found out other things, or Heaven might, and have come to punish them - and trying to tell himself it'll be okay. That he's overreacting.Aziraphale is fine and so is their nest.Obviously.Then he sees the flames from what has to be the bookshop.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Nesting [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534493
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	Burning

**Author's Note:**

> Did you think we were done? Probably not, considering what I've said earlier. Then again, it has been a while since I finished the last one, hasn't it? Reason being, as if you care, that I've been in two minds, or more, about whether to post this or not, given the subject and how I've felt writing this. But then events eventuated and...
> 
> GNU, my good sir. You are most severely missed, and I hope there is an afterlife where you can have a quiet beer and good, intelligent conversations.
> 
> HEADS UP: This particular installment follows the book much more than the show, so there is no bandstand argument or its subsequent iteration in front of the bookshop, no Alpha Centauri. None of all that, so please don't ask why it's not mentioned. :)

The car slid around the corner at a speed that should have seen it crash into the nearest building and possibly the one after that as well. As it were, the tires screeched and various pavement debris, such as litter bins, lamp posts and people, moved out of the way.

None of these things were particular noticed by the driver. All his attention was focused on keeping the car – no, to be perfectly honest, all his attention was focused on the phone that kept ringing and ringing without picking up.

Without Aziraphale picking up.

When it finished ringing, he blessed under his breath with a vehemence and creativity that would’ve shocked, but also impressed the angel in question, though he wouldn’t say it.

He told his phone to call again, and again, and again when none of the calls were answered.

“Come on, angel, come on, pick up, for – for crying out loud!” he growled, the anger born out of blinding panic more than anything.

Why wasn’t he answering? What could possibly have caused him not to answer at this important time?

He knew one possible reason, of course, one which was not at all unlikely or farfetched for all that he had spent his years trying not to worry about it.

Especially not seeing as he’d just been visited by Hastur and Ligur and had dealt with them as best he could. If they knew – if they had finally worked out what was going on, what he and Aziraphale had become to each other, then they wouldn’t hesitate to pay the angel a visit as well.

Hastur – Ligur hadn’t really been in a position to notice anything much before…well – thankfully didn’t seem to have caught on to Crowley’s nest remnants or at least the fact that they were nest remnants in the first place. He had been much too busy with Crowley and his bluff, or so the ginger at least hoped.

No. If Hastur, a Duke of Hell, had noticed something like nesting material in the flat of a demon he saw as so wholly unfit to bear the title of one, much less to have been in Hell’s good graces, insofar as that was physically possible, then he wouldn’t have kept it to himself. He would’ve let Crowley know he’d seen and just how he was going to use that to his advantage.

Fourteenth century mind, through and through.

That wasn’t what worried Crowley. Well, yes, he’d been scared witless of whether someone was going to find out what they’d done – never mind the fact that he’d been unable to bear being parted from the most incriminating piece of evidence possible, his pendant, ever since he’d created it to house the feathers – but if it had only been himself who’d…

Well, it was always easier to deal with things when they happened to yourself than someone you loved, wasn’t it? Or so he’d heard, in any case. It wasn’t as though he had a lot of experience in that regard, now was it?

He would’ve said ‘he was a demon, after all’, only that seemed not only horribly pat in the situation, but also demonstratively wrong.

Oh, not that he wasn’t still a demon. There was only one…entity who could do that and that…was out of the question, for several reasons.

Using the excuse of being a demon, however, seemed pat and wrong and more than that, like a copout.

It was shrugging his shoulders and pushing away responsibility. What could he do? He was a demon; it was what he was.

Except, it…wasn’t. Hadn’t he spent almost all the time he’d been on Earth trying to be other than that? More than that? Wasn’t that why Aziraphale looked his way in the first place? And then looked again, and again, and in fact fell in love with him?

Well, not only that, obviously, but…but he was more than what he’d started out as. Aziraphale believed that and so did Crowley. When he didn’t, or claimed he didn’t, was when he was lashing out. Calling attention to his status was a defence mechanism that was meant to give him a mental carte blanche.

That it hadn’t worked in years, since before he and Aziraphale had become nestmates, in fact, was a different matter, and didn’t meant that he stopped using it, of course. He’d got a lot better about it, though, with such a lot of patience and help from his angel.

He found himself clutching the pendant around his neck hard enough as he skidded and screeched his way through the streets of London that the crystal of it dug into his fingers, leaving indents as well as pain. They didn’t cut simply because he didn’t expect them to.

The pain he did expect. Welcomed, even.

It was something to ground him and keep him from spiralling. Too much, at least, because as he kept not getting through to the angel’s bookshop, he could feel his panic growing and all he could do to manage it was clutch the pendant as hard as possible, reassuring himself that it was there as he’d so often done before.

That and floor the accelerator, of course.

It didn’t help, either, that Aziraphale had called him while he’d been…engaged with his former colleagues and he’d had to say ‘got an old friend here’ in order not to give away who had called him, and definitely hadn’t helped to have the last words he’d heard from the angel be in a terse, tense voice.

_“Listen, I – “_

And then something from somewhere close by but not close enough for Crowley to hear, or at least register, the words. Of course, he hadn’t been in the best state of mind right then, either, which certainly didn’t help matters. So though he thought he recognised the voice, he wasn’t sure and wouldn’t be able to place where exactly that was.

That tone of voice, though…

That tone of voice was going to haunt him for a long time, if not forever. He knew it. Had known it the moment he’d heard it, and neither the words nor the fact that he’d been cut off did anything to make it easier on him.

It would be soothed when he got to the bookshop, though. As long as he could get to the bookshop, the nest, and see Aziraphale’s worried but whole and unscathed face, and body, then nothing else mattered. Then they could sort everything out and it would be alright.

First, of course, there was the whole ‘saving the world’ or at least ‘preventing the Apocalypse’, which hopefully amounted to the same thing. That made it sound easy, of course, when he knew it was anything but – that was part of the reason why he’d been spending time in almost every room in his flat ever since they’d got back from Tadfield. They had no plan and he could do nothing but wait around for Aziraphale to either come up with a plan or Armageddon to start.

He knew what he’d put his money on coming first but he would have to admit, too, that he might be just a little bit biased.

Then again, his trust hadn’t been misplaced – it never had been, but that wasn’t the point – as it sounded, from the ansaphone tape, as though Aziraphale had, in fact, come up with something, at least, if not an outright plan.

Why, then, had he sounded like that? That was something Crowley didn’t want to think about but at the same time kept replaying in his head, over and over. Just like Hastur was bound to spend eternity, or at least a long time, inside that tape.

Crowley would still say that he got the worse end of the deal because Hastur wasn’t panicking and trying to tell himself the love of his life was alright, really, it was merely a coincidence that he had sounded like that. That he would be fine when the ginger arrived at the nest. Annoyed and stressed, perhaps, but fine.

Oh, _heaven,_ the thought of Hastur – no, no, no, not going there! Things were bad enough as they were, no need to pour bloody holy water into the wound.

Almost there. He was almost there and then everything would be alright. Or at least not wrong. He could deal with just about anything so long as Aziraphale was okay.

He would, would – would take the Antichrist off to the moon if he needed to. If that was what would keep Aziraphale safe, he’d do it and keep him there.

It wouldn’t make any difference, of course, but Crowley wasn’t in the clearest frame of mind right then, as he nearly hit a parked lorry.

He blessed under his breath as the Bentley careened around the larger vehicle, nearly clipping someone in the process.

It was imperative he got back as soon as possible.

One might wonder why they’d split up in the first place. Why it wasn’t easier for Crowley to stay in the nest with Aziraphale rather than go back to his own flat, which, granted, wasn’t far away, but even so.

The angel had seemed rather preoccupied with…something, Crowley wasn’t entirely sure what that was, but while there was excitement in the lines of him – that special kind of excitement that only Aziraphale seemed able to conjure, mostly about books – there was also the enormous stress and worry, to understate to a ridiculous degree, of…well, their entirely bloody predicament, really.

One which metaphorically turned his angel into a…perhaps not so much a porcupine as a bed made of stiletto blades, and though Crowley would never blame him for it, puzzling though it had been, not to mention concerning, he also knew better than to be a burr.

That wasn’t the real reason, though. He could’ve easily ignored that if he’d wanted to. Ignored it in the sense that he’d let worries be bloody worries and brave the risk of being yelled at or more, depending on how frayed his poor angel was, and go straight in there to stay with him.

To be the help and the anchor that his nestmate evidently needed.

The trouble was that they’d already just spent an entire day driving to and from Tadfield together, looking for clues as to how to find the Antichrist. Not getting anywhere had not exactly raised the mood in the car on the way back, apart from the handholding they’d done throughout the journey.

Of course, they’d held hands on the way down as well, but the grip had been tighter on the return journey. The thumb drawing reassuring, grounding circles on the skin it could reach was certainly different.

If it had been, well, at least before the Antichrist had been born though probably before they’d become nestmates – though he’d worked on getting it under control, helped by Aziraphale as well as the knowledge that he couldn’t change anything and wouldn’t go back Crowley knew just how he’d been and still could be – then it might not have been as much of an issue.

Then he might not have thought as much about it. Part of that wasn’t that there’d been more breaks between seeing each other than after they’d become nestmates, of course, but mostly it was that there was nothing new under the sun. There’d been a status quo of sorts, between their respective head offices and themselves and between the two of them.

After they’d become nestmates, though, they’d tipped that balance. If nothing else, then because the nest was still there, clear as anything if someone from upstairs was to drop on by.

Now?

Now they were in a whole other mess because now it wasn’t only a _possibility_ that they were being paid attention to, it was a certainty. Not in the sense they were breathing down their necks, per se, but they’d reported back far more, been expected to, as well, and been under much closer scrutiny than ever before.

And that wasn’t even counting what would await them should they fail in their mission of saving the world, i.e. preventing the war that Heaven and Hell both had been preparing and gearing up for ever since, well, ever since there were two sides, really.

The ultimate grudge match, and like all grudge matches, it would be dirty and nasty, and maybe somewhat muddy as well, filled with people filled to brimming with justification and right, and without any reason for it that any sensible person could discern.

Fail there, fail to prevent it all, and not only would they lose the world, lose all they had built and nourished and loved ever since they’d both got sent to stay here, they would be made to live, as the saying went, in ‘interesting times’ for all of eternity.

Whether “The Sound of Music” would provide the soundtrack, he tried not to think about. That box was getting quite big by this point.

There’d be repercussions for preventing that grudge match from happening, too, of course, but he liked the chances of avoiding those better. Admittedly, it wasn’t unlike preferring the option of being bitten by a snake to being stung by a jelly, but then again, he did have some experience with snakes, didn’t he? It was close to his heart, you might say.

Apropos close to his heart, the pendant was only spared being crushed by the force of the grip he had on it at this point because he’d foreseen the possibility of something exceedingly painful happening, if not this outright scenario, and therefore was unable to be destroyed by him.

Repercussions would be one thing for the one whose side won, but it would be something else should they catch the nestmate, too. Not because one side was inherently worse than the other, whatever Aziraphale had tried to argue, more for the sake of argument and his need for hope than anything. Nor that they’d not use horrible – talk about uncreative all you liked, that tended not to matter as much when you got to test tried and true methods on your own corporation – on both of them, but because they would add an extra layer by torturing the mate in front of the other.

Why it mattered whose side won in that particular scenario wasn’t anything to do with Aziraphale’s moral quandaries, but simply this; it is always your friends or the ones who know you best, even if they aren’t people you like, that know just where to push and how hard to in order to cause the most hurt possible.

What’s more, they are often the ones most likely to do it, whether through accident or deliberate actions.

This would be deliberate action, of course, and Crowley was in no doubt that if they failed, if the war were won and a victor declared, this was what they’d be faced with.

More importantly, he knew that he’d rather it be Heaven who won because suffering through torture, especially someone who didn’t have the practice – Hell may not be inventive but they knew their tried and tested methods down to the metaphorical cloven hooves – would be, if not easier, then always, _always **infinitely**_ preferable to suffer through watching them torture Aziraphale.

Torture him incompetently, too, potentially, which would just be rubbing sulphur in the already salted, open wound.

He willed the car to go faster.

Why was this taking so long? It wasn’t far from Mayfair to Soho; it shouldn’t take this blessedly long!

He wrenched the car around the final corner _at last_ , heart full of fear and panic and the impossibly enormous love he had for his angel, who fucking _had_ to be alright, because he couldn’t handle it if he weren’t, and…stopped.

Just…stopped. Completely stopped.

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It wouldn’t register, no matter how long he stared at it or how much he tried to restart his brain to make it work even remotely.

Even when something rebooted inside his mind, the horror of what he was seeing didn’t want to settle, like a droplet of water attempted perched on top of an oiled glass bulb.

It couldn’t be. Just, simply couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible and therefore, it could not be happening.

There was no way that it could be true.

It. Was. Not. Possible.

And yet…and _yet…!_

He wanted to scream, the most unearthly, ear-splitting, earth-rendering screech that was ever heard on the planet or above or below. Wanted to let go of every restriction he had himself under and just let loose on anything and everything. He wanted to snarl and rip and tear. Wanted to tear right out of the car, across the street as far as he possibly could, scattering debris, alive or otherwise, before and behind him, so long as they got out of his way as quickly as possible.

So long as he got to destroy – no!

No, that wasn’t right. Not right at all, and Aziraphale would be horrified if he found out that Crowley would think –

But Aziraphale possibly wasn’t in a state to finding out much of anything, if he was even –

No! No, backing off from that thought immediately.

It wasn’t necessarily hellfire. There was no definite way of knowing, of course, but it didn’t _have_ to be hellfire at all. It could ‘just’ be normal fire.

Normal fire wasn’t _good,_ of course. Paper and wood burned just as fiercely and merrily with regular fire as it did with hellfire, if not better, and consequently, the nest would burn as well whichever it was.

The one silver lining to be had with it if it were indeed normal fire instead was that it might destroy the nest, but Aziraphale would be alright. For a given value of alright, of course.

He might be burned and would likely be in a state like no other Crowley had ever seen him, seeing his bookshop and their nest burn. Which of the two was worse for him would be impossible to say, a fact which the demon might, in order circumstances, have been very touched and reassured by, knowing just how much the angel cherished his bookshop.

The point was that however he would feel about it – and Crowley would be right there with him, that was for sure – if it was regular human fire, then Aziraphale could still be fine.

He might even be running around inside, trying to put things out.

Why hadn’t he put the fire out already, though, if he was still in there?

Was he – did that mean he was unconscious? Lying in there somewhere, knocked out by something falling as he tried to rescue his precious home? Was what why he hadn’t answered his phone? Because he wasn’t in a conscious state to do it?

Fuck, fuck, fuck! _Fuck!_

No matter how long he made the string of ‘fucks’ or even how many other, more creative swears he threw into the conga line, it didn’t make him feel any better about it all and yet, he couldn’t have stopped the litany from going in the lower levels of his thoughts.

Insofar as there were many thoughts at that point.

Somehow, he didn’t know how, he managed to only run towards the front door of the bookshop rather than use supernatural means, and without causing any kind of casualty, either, no matter how many people stood around to get a good and proper view of the fiery entertainment.

He had no idea, either, what he said to the fireman who stopped him that let him pass, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting into the bookshop, however many people were in his way. Which were quite a lot, given the time.

Then again, humans did love a show, didn’t they? Especially when there might be something to tell those who weren’t there about all the details, the more horrible, the better.

The public hangings, you often couldn’t move for people wanting to get the best view they could get. Ah, the days before radio and television.

Of course, there were still crowds at things such as this. He managed to push through them, though, and without incinerating or otherwise harming any of them, which, given the state of mind he was in…

Well, to be perfectly honest, he had managed to gather himself a little as he’d moved. Not a lot but enough so that it didn’t seem likely he was going to obliterate the nearest person or implode from the panic and worry running like frightened rabbits inside his chest.

He might not have approached what could be considered calm and collected, not even close, but for what the situation was, he thought he’d got it somewhat under control, at least. Or he would have, had he been in a state to consciously notice that sort of thing.

The moment he stepped inside, however; it all went to pots. More accurately, it went to Hell, but that might’ve been a bit too…on the nose.

It was clear from the outside that the place had been set alight. That it had been a proper fire, too, had also been evident.

However, it had failed to communicate the truth of the matter with any kind of accuracy; it was an outright inferno.

That wasn’t even hyperbole. A room consisting almost exclusively of highly flammable material that had spent decades if not centuries getting progressively drier, however well cared for they were, was…the flame equivalent of an all-sugar buffet, wasn’t it?

For all that they’d spent time not only making it into their nest, insofar as they dared, rather than Aziraphale’s that had been accepted by Crowley’s but also making it as safe and secure as they could, it seemed that it hadn’t been enough.

But they’d thought of fire, quite naturally. Even though it was far more likely it would be anyone from upstairs that burst into the bookshop unannounced, someone from downstairs might’ve taken it into their head to follow Crowley at some point where he didn’t catch them in time and discovered the nest.

Not because he was important, of course – for all that he’d been the one to deliver the Antichrist, let’s not go further into that, and had been commended for quite a lot of work over the millennia, it wasn’t as though he was in a good standing with the rest of Hell, let alone someone with influence or importance – but simply because he was a thorn in someone’s side or they saw an opportunity.

The point was that they should’ve been in the clear with fire, Hell-sourced or otherwise. So, why was it burning? It shouldn’t be burning at all, let alone be an inferno, it should be fine. Fine and whole and full of a fretting, worried angel who might at any moment snap at him because of that worry.

What he wouldn’t give for being snapped at or yelled at right now. Of course, it would be necessary to shout to have anyone hear him. Flames given that much food tends to roar and crackle its thanks and these did, continuously.

Aziraphale, you – you _stupid Aziraphale?_ Are you here?” he yelled, looking about desperately for any glimpse of the familiar, beloved shape.

No answer. Nothing at all but the continued laughter of the fire as it ate at furniture, toppled shelves and devoured paper and leather with abandon.

He looked up and he looked down, his vision beyond the normal human range assisting him to see, and yet…

Yet there was no sign of Aziraphale.

Where was he? Where could he possibly be? He was supposed to be here, Crowley had last seen him here and he hadn’t had any reason to leave here, especially not without telling Crowley about it. This was his home, his bookshop.

Their nest!

He _had_ to be here. Here was where he belonged!

The demon was dimly aware of his trouser leg starting to smoulder and he turned his gaze down to glare it away. He did not have time for that now.

There was an angel to find and nothing else mattered. Not even the end of the world. The world couldn’t end when he had yet to locate Aziraphale, end of.

He looked about him, growing more and more desperate and panic-stricken, especially seeing as most of what he could see was flames and smoke and flames. Distantly, he heard wood crackling and crashing and the peculiar drying cackle of already fired bricks being exposed to even more heat.

Somewhere, there was an angel on a floor or in a chair, burned and battered and in pain, unable to reach Crowley, perhaps unable to speak at all, and he needed to find him.

As long as he found him, no matter what state he was in, then everything would be alright. As long as he was _alive_ , then Crowley could cope with anything.

It was the only thing that stood between Crowley and descending into a mess of…he didn’t even know right then.

He felt the urge to scream again as he watched their nest – their _nest! –_ be destroyed in front of his very eyes, and there was nothing he could do about. That was the worst part.

At least until he saw what he spotted next.

His very being, so much deeper than any corporation, no matter how long inhabited, trembled and shook, threatening to tear apart at the seams when he laid eyes on something in front of him, right where it had always been, on display yet carefully hidden so as not to be taken by customers or spotted by intruding angels.

Rather, he saw the pitiful remains of what had been there.

By all rights, it should’ve been gone entirely. After all, it was made of something that seemed almost designed to go ‘poof’ immediately when exposed to flame, no matter its origin.

But there it was, nevertheless; the skeleton of that…that very first feather.

The very symbol of their nest.

He clutched the pendant in his hand even harder at that, having momentarily let go of it as he searched. Pain seared through his palm, sharp and cold and welcome.

Tears were streaming down his face, or at least they would if they didn’t turn to steam immediately in the scorching heat surrounding him, and he’d begun hissing without his conscious knowledge.

He reached out a hand but the few bits that were still holding together to resemble a feather crumbled before he could touch it, leaving only the smallest bit of ash behind. Nothing concrete. Nothing to hold onto.

Nothing.

Just like the rest of the nest. _Their_ nest.

It was their nest that was crumbling to nothing around him, with him powerless to do anything about it. Though not consciously, he had tried to miracle the flames away, but it had no effect. Then again, he wasn’t in the clearest of mental states right now, either, which couldn’t be helping, quite apart from the fact that this might be outside his power of influence.

Everything there was, everything they’d built together, it was disappearing right before his eyes. Burning into nothing, as though it didn’t matter and never had.

Destroyed like so much rubbish.

Every scrap of evidence that he had been worthy not just of an angel nesting for him, but _Aziraphale,_ Angel of the Eastern Gate, Principality and Rare Bookdealer. That it had been made for him and he’d helped to make it theirs.

Almost every scrap; the chain around his neck threatened to break, though whether from the infernal heat – not truly, that burned in quite a different way, at least for demons – or his constant pull on it wasn’t clear.

And, of course, most importantly of all, Aziraphale himself.

Why was he so worried about the nest when there was an angel to find? If he could find his angel, nothing else mattered.

They could build a new nest. Together. From the start. Screw the rule that said nests had to be from courting and presented to the other party who then accepted it. They could make one together, with the plants and books and the feathers.

It was only a symbol, after all, not the thing itself. Their relationship wasn’t gone or annulled because the symbol of it was gone any more than humans stopped being married because either of them had been unlucky enough to have their wedding ring slide off their finger at an inopportune moment where they weren’t paying attention and now it wasn’t to be found anywhere.

For all that it tore at his very being, he could get over it. They had talked about it and discussed it then talked about it some more and he’d got to a point where he could recognise what he was thinking and if not control it then nudge and steer it.

Not that he was in much of a headspace to do that right now, of course, but still.

One thought among that remained, though.

So long as Aziraphale was fine…

He didn’t care that his mind was going around in circles now. The mere fact that he could think at all was quite impressive as his panic grew further and further in his chest.

In his entire body, in fact.

He wasn’t going to give up. There might not be much time left before the fire burned through some loadbearing part of the building and the upper floors came spilling down to meet him, but there was still time and there was still a chance that somewhere, just out of sight, was the angel.

The angel who almost definitely couldn’t hear him but as the flames went up higher all around him and everything was grey smoke and a swirling, roaring mess of red, yellow and orange hues, he nevertheless tried to call for him.

It was that or just start screaming. Which was still most definitely on the table, too. He could feel it scratching and ripping at his stomach and his throat, just waiting to come out.

"Hello? Aziraphale! For Go—, for Sa—, for _somebody's_ sake! Aziraphale!"

That last calling of his name bordered on a scream, that was for certain.

No answer.

Still no answer and he couldn’t see the faintest hint of ridiculously, endearingly outdated clothes or platinum blond curls or anything else that might reassure him that Aziraphale was in fact that.

Could he have gone – no.

Where would he have gone? And even if he had gone somewhere, for whatever possible reason there could be for it, he would’ve found some way to contact Crowley.

Well, he _had,_ hadn’t he? That was why he’d called –

No!

No, that wasn’t…that wasn’t it because Aziraphale had called from his landline. It had said so on the ansaphone and on his mobile, too. He would recognise that number anywhere.

Maybe he had still at least got out and Crowley had just missed him in the –

He turned as he heard glass breaking, some utterly irrational part of him hoping that it was Aziraphale either coming in or breaking out. Either of those options would –

The jet of water hit him in the chest full blast and sent him to the ground like a wrestler with a glass jaw.

It might’ve been better if it had sent him flying. Certainly would’ve been more dramatic. For a brief, dizzying moment, he hoped it would knock him out entirely and leave him to burn away.

Just like Aziraphale.

Aziraphale who was gone.

Completely, utterly gone.

He hadn’t wanted to see that, much less admit to it, but with a sinking feeling akin to ship in the oceanic equivalent of the bathtub plug being removed, only the ship was a dinghy, he realised that it was true.

What was worse, he might be completely gone. Not only discorporated but outright destroyed.

The very thing they’d been so worried about and had tried to work around so as to prevent from occurring had happened in the end.

Had the angels got to him? If they had, Crowley wouldn’t be able to smell it because the stench of fire and all the associated smells hung harsh and thick in his nostrils and had done so since he’d stepped inside.

Why the fire, then? That was surely more the demons’ speed. But they didn’t know about Aziraphale, did they? He’d been so careful, had let nothing slip, had looked out for any indication that he’d been followed when he’d dared to visit the bookshop. They shouldn’t know about him at all.

All of this barely made it into something coherent inside his head, let alone a fully-fledged thought. Most of what there was as he sat there, on the floor, sunglasses a melted melamine memory somewhere among the wreckage, was white noise and emptiness.

He wasn’t even angry. Or scared. As he sat there, amongst the ongoing destruction of everything he had held dear in the world, neither of those would come to him.

He wasn’t anything.

Before, he had wanted to scream and there was still part of him that was desperately clawing at his insides for him to do so. If nothing else, then to get an outlet of some kind. There had to be an outlet of some sort, or he’d implode.

All around that part of him, around the anger and the panic, however, grew a hollowness and a numbness, as though he had been scooped out from the inside, everything that was inside of him, and then left to wander around like a real-life ell-girl.

Only, he had no desire to trap men or similar.

He had no desire for anything.

As yellow eyes stared out in front of them, taking in little to nothing of their surroundings, they somehow still managed to spot the cover of a familiar book lying, miraculously unscathed on the floor.

A stray, erroneous thought for the moment wondered just why it was on the floor since Aziraphale would never put –

His mind skittered away from that thought as fast as a spider trying to outrun a flood.

Or a fire.

Without thinking on any conscious level, he reached out with shaking, soot-blackened fingers and picked it up, stuffing it into his jacket pocket.

It would only be later that he registered that he’d done it and even later than that that he realised picking that particular thing up, after everything, might have held its very own symbolism for him.

For them.

As it stood right then, it was an entirely subconscious move, and it was the only move he made, immobile after that.

His eyes were entirely serpentine at that point, but though he in other situations would have, not so much as the faintest hiss emanated from his lips then.

He couldn’t.

Nothing filtered through enough to be processed and even if it did, it had still to push through the hollow numbness, or possibly numb hollowness, which dissolved most of what there was.

Aziraphale was gone. Their nest was destroyed and his angel likewise.

Something did manage to push through his being intact and unscathed by the fragmentation and the hollowness and numbness and it pushed through his chest, throat and into his mouth, coming out in a hoarse voice.

“You’re gone. Somebody killed my best friend. My _nestmate.”_

It was a voice filled with emotion that rose to an exhausted, despairing shout.

“ ** _Bastards_** _!! **ALL OF YOU**!!”_

The words shook through him, bursting that bubble, that cocoon of nothing into a million shards of hurt as the reality, in full, came crashing down around him.

Like the ceiling that finally had had enough and decided to collapse on top of him, taking the top of the building with it and burying him.

**Author's Note:**

> Did that hurt a bit? I'm almost tempted to say 'good' because it bloody hurt to write, and I am not done yet, either. Oh, happy day.  
> This, apart from being painful to write, is something of a challenge to incorporate the parts of the book without copying it wholesale and then shifting and tweaking it to fit with the changes I've made to the world. I hope it works, though.  
> The story was the fault of a few people who made comments on whether I could imagine the bookshop fire in this world...turns out I could.


End file.
